Book Board Chat

Elements of Style

Perfection is unattainable and it is boring. A room decorated to where everything is just so is self-important and static. Style ought to be loose and easygoing, capacious and expansive, uplifting and amusing. If a room fails to put you at ease and welcome you, then, what is the point? Most stylish homes are ones that are comfortable and inviting. They are imbued with the life that goes on there. Here are 10 essential, things all these homes share. Embracing imperfection does not mean anything goes. It means beauty tempered by reality.

1. A Little Animal
People like cute things and animals are cute—it is so nice to have a small creature in figurine form in your house. A funny stuffed animal on a nicely made bed, a white porcelain monkey on your dining table, a painted Staffordshire dog in your bookshelf or a big gold piggy bank on your mantel. Pick up a nice, inanimate pet along your journeys, bring it home and see how you feel.

2. Jollifiers.
Jollifiers are things that spread a little joy every time you cast your eye upon them. They are among the easiest decorating tools, as they require no skill or sophisticated understanding. You basically set them out and, like talismans, they exude their subtle power. Certain motifs like hearts and polka dots can jollify, but it could be something as simple as a favorite snapshot stuck into the edge of a mirror or a child's drawing framed and hung "seriously" among other pictures.

3. Mollifiers
This is the stuff that you allow into your home because as awful as it may be, it makes someone else happy. There is a softening of attitude that comes from letting some of these things into your life. They show that you put love before style. A famous example is Jackie Kennedy's acceptance of President Kennedy's funny old rocking chair in the Yellow Oval Room. She vowed to her decorator they'd get it out of there somehow, but in the end, it completely chic-ed up the room by being quirky and unexpected.

4. The Odd Chair
An odd chair is used for its amusing demeanor. It is more like a piece of sculpture than a chair. Chairs have personality, like a little human, standing on four legs with outstretched arms. The odd chair is frequently diminutive, unusual-looking and solitary. These are "personality" chairs, and some think that every room should have one. The odd chair can hold a stack of books or a bunch of flowers or a lamp. And it can even be used like a chair when needed.

5. Shiny objects
We are attracted to bright, shiny objects, and for good reason: our homes need them. As our eyes flit around the room, they alight on and are delighted by those bright spots. A bit of sparkle brings a focused sharpness to materials and shapes. These objects can be in silver, gold, brass, or glass. In forms they can be anything from boxes to bowls to candlesticks to picture frames. Set them upon consoles, inside shelves, atop books and on pedestals. Mingle them, make tableaux of them.

6. Ethnic Textiles
Handcrafted fabrics bring coziness to a room and worldliness to a home. Some favorites include Central Asian suzanis and ikats, Indonesian and West African batiks, Moroccan wedding blankets and American quilts. These things can be draped over a table, laid on a bed, made into pillows or hung over the back of a sofa. Every room can handle one of these far-flung treasures,.

7. Not Too Much Brown Furniture
Furniture is not supposed to be made only out of brown wood. Too many brown pieces in a room is the surest way to suck the life out of it. One decorator allows no more than three brown pieces in any one room. Furniture should be a mix of tones and materials, like painted or stained wood, lacquer, Lucite, metal, glass or fabric.

8. Decorative Mirrors
Most rooms benefit from some extra sparkle. Choose glamorous mirrors with beautiful frames, like gilded wood or shiny lacquer. Convex mirrors have been used since classical times to reflect light. That is the point of any decorative mirror. Indeed, a big mirror over a fireplace or in a dining room can toss daylight around and multiply the light of a chandelier or the glimmer of candles.

9. Log Baskets
Even if you have no fire place and no use for split wood, you still might like the rugged texture of a big woven basket in your living room or front hall. A good basket cozies without cloying. It gives you something a little rough and adds a sense of depth to most rooms. Use them to fill the empty space under a leggy console, an extra place to stash things like magazines, toys, sports equipment, woolens in the entry or neat stacks of towels in the bathroom.

10. Some Patina
A home needs some softness of old wood, the dullness of aged metal, the subtle colors of an original paint job, or fabric faded by the sun. Without a little of this, a house feels cold and untouched by human life. A little decrepitude is just the thing for some fabrics and rugs and furniture. Life is messy and gloriously imperfect, and a few signs of wear and tear indicate a well-loved, well-used home. A home that looks well-loved and well-lived in usually is.

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